Messages - Zepp

Most weekend and nights Cooley students are on the part time plans and tend to be around 40 some even with a pension from their old jobs. Would you give them priority over a Harvard grad due to that?

There is no experience that a Cooley student can have that will ever give them a leg up on a Harvard grad (unless that Harvard grad has subsequently been convicted of a felony). Sorry, those are just the cold hard facts. At least keep it reasonable, a see how you compete against a 3rd tier grad...not a grad from one of the top 3 schools.

Take a prep course, and retake the LSAT (I jumped from 154 to 165). And seriously kick butt your last year. You're on the cusp of getting into a solid top tier school (perhaps even top 14). The range for 25 to 75 percentile at Georgetown spans LSAT 167-172 and GPA 3.42 to 3.82. As for an actual school...depends what you're looking for, where you want to practice, what type of law you want to practice. Being a double Hoya, I'm obviously a big fan of Georgetown...but there are many people that don't like the idea of going to a huge law school in the middle of the city.

Well, if you are being sincere, I suggest you hold off even trying to apply to law school, because your other posts here give a very strong impression that you still lack the maturity and focus for law school, and would have similar results to your first attempt. A friend of mine once described law school as all the drama and hormones of high school, but without the restraint of living with your parents. And I can understand not being mentally there yet. That was me as an undergrad. Had painfully average (if not worse) undergrad grades. Thought about law school, but one of my proffs suggested I take some time off, dabble in the real world, and make sure it was what I really wanted to do, rather than get into a middling law school, get middling grades, and if I'm luck, get a middling job, and perhaps practice for 3 years before looking for something different. So I started a career, got a masters in some liberal arts field just for personal enrichment, and then applied for law school in my early 30s. Only ended up getting into a tier 2 school, ranked top 5 in my class after the first year, and transfered to Georgetown, and graduated cum laude. So yes, I can understand lack of maturity being an obsticle.

Now for your other factors, and getting into a top tier school. As I said earlier, you are not strictly a 1L, nor are you a transfer. You can kiss that LSAT score from 2005 good bye, because every law school is going to require you to have current LSAT scores. Anything older than 5 years is not current. You will have to take the LSAT again. Your 2005 LSAT score won't even be reported. For all intents and purposes, it doesn't exist. Hopefullly, you will do just as well. However, to pretend that it is a given is to delude yourself. Your attending USC doesn't help you in the least, because you failed out. It might as well have been a top 5 law school. Failing out of a great law school is not a selling point to an admissions board. If anything, this is probably your biggest hurdle to get into a decent school. Perhaps you can try to explain it away in a personal statement, but you can't just pretend you are only relying on an undergrad GPA and LSAT score. If you didn't have that giant 0.0 on your law school transcript, your magna cum laude, and Phi Beta Kappa would certainly mean open doors at top14 schools, but you shot yourself in the foot. As for your "soft factors," sorry to tell you, they aren't that impressive. You held down some jobs that didn't require physical labor, and managed to work your way up to assistant manager. Congratulations. But it really isn't that much of a big deal. It's not like you joined the Peace Corps, organized a successful non-profit that distributes clothes to homeless vets, became a lobbyist, worked on a congressional staff, etc. You held a pair of retail positions. It really is no big f'en deal. It's not a strike against you (as if you had been living in your parents' basement for the past 8 years playing video games), but I'd be very surprised if it made a difference one way or the other.

If you really want to go to law school, first and foremost...grow up. If you manage to get into a top tier law school, everyone will have similar credentials as you, so you can't afford not to take things seriously. Even if you only get into a second tier school because of your failing out, you will still encounter folks with solid academic backgrounds. You will be graded on a strict curve, so even if you put out a really solid final, it might still only get you a B- (mercifully, the higher tiered schools have much easier curves than the lower tiered schools, and the top 3 don't even report grades). With the legal market as tight as it is, do you really want to take on a quarter of a million dollars in non-discharable law school debt if you are only going to screw off, "sowing your wild oats" and finishing with an unimpressive GPA that will leave with no job prospects when all is said and done?

First off, judging by your other posts, I don't think you're serious (or truthful) about much of anything, least of which being your interest in law school, LSAT scores or whether you actually attended law school. But I'm bored, so why not throw a real answer in for the heck of it. Assuming everything you said is true, your chances of getting into any T14 school are slim. If you walked out during finals, your transcript isn't marred by Ws, it's marred by Fs. Schools have withdrawal deadlines, usually very early in the semester. No school I have ever heard of permits you to withdraw in the middle of finals. So you have a whopping 0.0 lawschool GPA, that you will be required to report. So that puts you into a very interesting and unpleasant situation. You're not exactly a transfer student, since you have no transferable credits, but you have to report your failed first swing through law school. So that 166 LSAT score isn't going to help you very much either. It's more than 5 years old, so it's not reported, and despite having attended law school, you are still a prospective 1L, so you will need to take the LSAT again. Hopefully you will do as well or better. If not...well, you already had an uphill battle, might as well give up. As for any "soft" factors, I wouldn't hang my hopes on that either. "Soft" factors might help someone on the cusp or help an otherwise "no" in a tier 2 school to be reconsidered. It's not going to be the basis to get into a top 14 school. I'd wager you're pretty much SOL for Columbia. But on the bright side, going by your other posts, I'm guessing you're full of B.S. anyway, so none of this really matters. If I'm wrong, I'd say your posts show a lack of maturity and judgment to be successful in law school, and your second attempt would probably have similar results to your first, so don't waste the money for the LSAT or applications.

I personally did not attend, but know several folks who did (being in the same metro area). My understanding is the "conservative" nature of the school is more wrapped up in their embracing the "law and economics" theory, and running with it pretty much at every level they can (some have even complained about heavy handed it can be). In contrast I'd have to say Catholic University (in the same metro area) is probably more conservative in terms of being socially conservative (at least on the faculty level), and at Mason, it's all about the money....but again, this is all second hand.

Chart 3 of Bar Admissions guide goes state by state of listing of what states let you sit for the bar. As for petitioning the board. It depends on the state. Most states you're wasting your time. The requirement for an ABA school is set by statute, or enshrined in court rules. Some states may have some wiggle room (MD let's non-ABA grads petition the board for a waiver if they have practiced in another state for at least 5 years, but otherwise, not a chance).

You'll have to excuse me for not copying your whole diatribe, but I'll try to hit all the points.

I don't hope to convince you of anything. I think that would be a lost cause. I'm just defending what I find to be very reasonable standards for admission to the practice of law. I have never said they are the only reasonable standards, nor that there can be no alternative to the ABA standards. I have also never said that states that don't accept ABA standards don't know what they are doing. Personally, I believe the ABA standards are far too liberal. I also don't believe that the lower tiered ABA approved schools should be charing the same tuitions as those at the top of the list (and the non-accredited schools shouldn't be anywhere near the price). But those arguments are neither here nor there. The pro-se arguement has popped in and out for different reasons. Sum up to say, someone claimed that they were being unconstitutionally denied access to the courts. That's a non-starter. You have no constitutional right to practice law, and it has nothing to do with access to the courts. I'll leave it at that.

As for your numbers....the schools you picked out are samples so small that their numbers are statistically useless. US Davis had 5 test takers, Taft had 12. Just to show how meaningless those numbers are, if you go to just the prior bar exam, US Davis had an 81% first time pass rate and Taft 0%. At least for that exam, US Davis had a useable sample size of 176 test takes (Taft's sample was still useless with only 1 first time test taker). Looking at the larger (and statistically significant) numbers of ABA-accredited versus non-accredited for even that test administration, still shows that non-ABA accredited schools have only half the pass rate of their ABA approved counterparts. So yes, I do believe that a law school's inability to graduate students that have decent pass rates of the bar exam is a reflection of the quality of education received. And no, my conclusions about the quality of education are based on many facts. FACT - non-ABA accredited schools have dramatically lower pass rates. This can mean only a few things. The quality of education is significantly lower or the quality of students is significantly lower. Even if the students are just significantly worse, a good portion of what one gets out of any education is from discussion with fellow students. So if your discussion is at a much lower level, so is the quality of your education. So you have the same result (remove the discussion entirely, and I think you're another rung lower). I would go so far to say that the quality of education at Harvard would be significantly higher than at Georgetown, even if you had the same professor teaching the class.

You say "proven adult learning styles that have demonstrated success time and time over." Where exactly is that success? Nationally, DL has a 17% pass rate! Is that what you qualify as proven success? And that we're talking about the minimum level to be qualified to practice the law.

ABA is a voluntary organization. The fact that states adopt their standards doesn't make its membership any less voluntary. Just because you attend an ABA approved school doesn't require you to become a member of the ABA or even having a state requirement that you attend an ABA school to take the bar exam require you to be a member of the ABA upon passing the bar, and as far as I know, no state requires ABA membership to become an attorney. Also, requiring a school be accredited by the ABA doesn't mean the state is telling you how to spend your money. No one is forcing you to become an attorney, it is your choice. And while what school you attend does not always corrilate with intelligence, it is an indicator of the quality of education, and more often than not, you could probably safely wager that it does correspond with intelligence. Are there legacy students that get into some ivy leagues...sure. Are there some students that for personal reasons attend lower tiered, or non-ABA approved schools that are brilliant...absolutely. Grab 50 students from each of those schools, however, I'm willing to bet more of the ivy leagures are more intelligent. So do I think we need to throw standards out the window because a few exceptions. Not a chance. Some times life isn't fair.

Zepp, you are trying to compare apples and peanuts here. Obviously, students who attend a DL law school are aware they can only take the California Bar. DL schools regardless of curriculum are going to attact statistical outliars and a lot of failures who have no business being in law school. A DL school at present is basically a glorified reading list, it has nothing to do with what goes on a law school. However reading for law is a traditional and proven method of passing the bar. Since students already have a undergrad degree, so if they choose to read for the bar exam, what is the problem?

"Reading the law" was very different than simply a glorified reading list. It was an apprenticeship done under a licensed judge or attorney. There is more to being an attorney than being able to rattle off sections of the code.

And although we share the common law tradition with the English, their system of legal representation is very different than ours. There is a difference between a solicitor and barrister, and what each can do. Since I have no interest in practicing in the UK, I don't know all the differences, but there are differences. Is there an argument that you shouldn't need an attorney to do everything, sure. I'm sure you could convince me of that. But as long as we have one license to practice law, I do believe there should be a high standard as to who holds that license.

The answer here is for the ABA mossbacks to accept online education and let the well endowed ABA schools offer external JDs. This is the 21st Century, we have the technology available to replace the "sage on the stage with the guide on the side." But it takes money and aside from Washington Posts's Concord, no one has the money to make that sort of investment in a school that can only churn out California lawyers who then get blocked by ABA Luddites at every step.

I completely disagree. Until states issue separate licenses for different types of attorneys, they all need to be held to the same high standards. A great portion what one learns in law school comes from the discussion with classmates. If you can't defend your position against your classmates, in a classroom, what hope do you have in a courtroom. How does a "glorified reading list" to use your own words, prepare a student for that? It isn't that the ABA are being Luddites, it is the recognition that distance learning is lacking in a good portion of what it takes to be a well rounded attorney. The expectation that a legal education include active discussion isn't unreasonable since a good porition of the job involves being a vocal advocate for a client.

I said pro se plaintiffs can waste the courts time and needlessly drive up litigation costs. And I would even argue that perhaps some form of the British system of loser pays costs might be advisable. However, I never said that anyone is entitled to practice law, nor have I ever said we should block people from access to the courts.

So, which is it - an entity outside the state sets the criteria, or the state sets it? Sounds like double talk, I may be wrong.

State sets the criteria to take and pass the bar exam. The ABA sets the standard for their accredidation. Where is the double talk? Personally, I think requiring a diploma from an ABA accredited schools is a fair requirement (and would even argue that the ABA is too free in giving out their stamp of approval). The practice of law is a career based on your ability to use your mind. It seems only natural that a state would use a criteria based on the quality of education to determine who should be considered for entering that field.

So, using your explaination, for those students who graduate from a B&M/ABA school, but fail to pass the bar, that school ALSO "... fail to produce graduates that regularly meet the bare minimum standard to practice law." Therefore, those institutions who fail to produce reasonably good attorneys (graduates) that fail to meet the rock bottom criteria, the state should NOT give those graduates the privilege to even that the exam? On this question, I suspect there is No school that has a 100% pass rate exam after exam, so no school would qualify. Or, should there be a set percentage of bar passing students that determines which schools the state allows to ake the bar? If so, who sets those standards? If says one student from a school who has a 80% bar pass rate is any better than another student from a school who has 30% bar pass rate? Should the latter student not be given the same opportunity to prove him/herself as the former?

In 2010 (the latest numbers available), graduates of ABA-accredited schools had a 74% passage rate across the country. Non ABA-accredited schools were at 25%. That 25% is broken down to a 28% passage rate at brick and motar schools, 19% from correspondence schools, and 17% at on-line schools. If you at least somewhere in the neighborhood, your protestations might have a point, but these schools are not even close. As to who sets the standards...well, pretty obviously the states do. Some let non-ABA accredited graduates take their bar exams (obviously since we have stats on them), others do not. The ABA takes bar passage into consideration as to which schools they accredit, but no state is required to go by what the ABA approves. Obviously if we're talking about a difference between 74% and 25%, students at any non-ABA accredited school are not getting the same education as their counterparts at the ABA-accredited school. Therefore I see is nothing irrational in a state treating them differently. As to whether the graduate should be given the same opportunity to prove them selves, I say it is up to the state, and I think there is nothing unreasonable about a state having a probition on graduates of non-ABA accredited schools. The proof is in the pudding. The quality of the graduating classes are not the same, so there is no reason they should be treated the same